The Final Countdown

It's the third day of riding already and there is one fact that shocks me: everyone still has a good attitude. In fact, I would venture to say that the trip's members are happy...all the time.

The reason for my shock stems from several places. First off, mornings are early. The first riding day began at 5:30 a.m. Dan, wonderful trip leader that he is, woke everyone up with the trip's theme song: Final Countdown. The moment I heard it, I lept out of my sleeping bag and went streaking down the hall to form an impromptu dance party with Dan and Isaiah at the music's source. That pretty much embodied how excited we were.

My shock continued when, though the first ride was 65 miles over massive hills and some dirt road, there were no serious complaints. Everyone seemed to share a collective laugh about the day's trials. For one thing, everyone got lost at some point or another. I was riding with a group that didn't even get lunch. Brendan, who drove the van that day, decided to move the lunch spot back several miles. Unfortunately we had already gone by the new location and therefore missed it. By the time we had called Brendan, we were all of 12 miles from Concord, so we just pressed on. We wound up just laughing about it, drawing sad chalk faces and arrows pointing behind us reading "Lunch?"

I'm not gonna lie, I was exhausted after the first day. I thought for sure there were people who were not going to make it, but alas, everyone rode their bikes the whole way to the church.

I should also mention our wheel-dipping ceremony which occurred early that morning at a beach just outside Portsmouth. We dipped our back wheels in and when we reach Vancouver, we'll dip our front wheels in to finish the cycle.

Yesterday and today the rides continued in intensity. The hills are still fairly moderate; everyone keeps talking about some giant mountain we'll be climbing in a couple days. Bring it, I say. We did have some rain today which was fun but made for poor visibility and wet clothing later.

Right now we're staying in Lebanon, NH. Right now I'm in Dartmouth's library typing this out, ecstatic at the opportunity to use a computer. For all North Central people, I wondered whether I would see anyone I knew on campus and sure enough, about 20 min after I arrived in town I saw Marcus Gadson. He had no clue who I was. But he seems to have grown quite a bit. He's more...normal?

A last quick anecdote is our adventures at the laundromat yesterday. Laundry duty consists of gathering everyone's dirty clothes in two giant tarps: one for normal clothing and one for riding gear (i.e. chamois, pronounced 'shamies'). Okay, just to give all those unfamiliar with some of the more intimate details of riding: bicycle shorts (chamois) are worn without underwear. Most days you just wear the same pair to cut down on washing cycles. So, wrapping the two tarps tight like giant laundry burritos, we stuffed the stuff in the van and made our way to the laundromat. Now I have to hand it to the other members of my crew: what troopers. Arianna and Zach just dove their bare hands into those dirty chamois to stick them in the wash. I was not about to touch other people's dirty chamois directly. Give me some gloves and tweezers and maybe I'll do it. Better yet, get me a biohazard suit.

It didn't stop there. The washer with the chamois broke in the middle of the cycle, leaving us with a mountain of wet clothing. We then had to hand wring the entire load. Penn made a gorgeous comment: "I don't really feel as though I know a person unless I've wrung out their underwear with my bare hands." I laughed the entire afternooon.

Well I better get back to living; I promise pictures are forthcoming. I love the comments, keep them coming.